


i love you (but we're a million worlds apart)

by brightwrites



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, IF I COULD TELL HER AU, James Reynolds Being an Asshole, Light Angst, Mutual Pining, POV Eliza Schuyler, basically it's based on the DEH song you know the one, god i can't believe that's an actual tag that i didn't know about until now, hand holding, neither of them work there its just that they spend the entire goddamn story in a coffee shop, not really actually all they do is talk about being in a fake relationship, the title is super angsty but i swear it isn't that bad, there's more fuckin hand holding in this than fake dating, there's so many lams fake dating aus i just wanted to write one for marliza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 21:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14004849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightwrites/pseuds/brightwrites
Summary: “I got angry,” Maria said softly, still not meeting Eliza’s eyes. “And— and I messed up. A lot.” She twisted her fingers nervously. “I told a lie.”“Oh,” Eliza said, not sure how to react. “What did you tell him?”She watched the intricate muscles of Maria’s throat contract and expand slowly, as Maria swallowed. “I told him that I know that I’m definitely gay,” her eyes flickered up to meet Eliza’s, “because you and I are dating.”





	i love you (but we're a million worlds apart)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Dear Evan Hansen's "If I Could Tell Her", which is also the song that this entire fic is based on.

On the outskirts of Princeton University in New Jersey, there sits a cozy little coffee shop. The furniture is slightly too close together to comfortably navigate, and it’s a bit crowded with students typing into their clackety keyboards. But the lights overhead spill a warm glow into the shadowy corners of the room, and the air is thick with steam, laughter, and the comforting scent of coffee. In one corner, sits a young woman with long, dark hair, checking her phone worriedly, two full cups of hot chocolate resting on the table beside her.

Eliza Schuyler tapped her nails nervously against the blemished wood of the table, before putting her palm flat onto it, curling and uncurling her fingers agitatedly.

Maria had texted her almost forty-five minutes ago. _We need to talk. I may have messed up, big time. Meet me at our booth asap?_

The way that she had called it _their_  booth had filled Eliza with an indescribable kind of warmth, one that spread throughout her entire body and kept her toes from freezing even as she hurried through the snow-caked campus to the coffee shop. To _their_ booth.

Eliza was about to shoot off another _Where are you? Are you alright?_ Text to Maria, when the bell above the door to the coffee shop tinkled cheerfully for the third time since Eliza had come into the shop. She glanced up again, a little less hopefully this time, before being slumping with relief at the sight of her best friend, flushed and a little ruffled, but from what Eliza could see, completely fine.

Eliza lifted a hand to wave, and felt little pleased tingles shoot through her at the way Maria’s entire face lit up at the sight of Eliza. “Liza!” She called in that honey-smooth voice of hers, making her way slowly through the treacherous terrain that was too-crowded furniture, and inevitably banging her hips off every chair and table in the process.

“Hey,” Eliza flashed the other girl as much of a smile as possible, but even she knew that her concern was making itself visible through the way that the smooth skin between her eyebrows was creasing.

“So, ah, how has your day been?” Maria asked, a little awkwardly. She spotted the two cups of still-warm hot chocolate sitting on the table. “Oh, is one of those for me?” Eliza nodded. “Thank you!” Maria took a happy sip of the comforting drink.

Now, don’t get her wrong, Eliza was perfectly glad to spend time with her best friend for absolutely no reason, but Maria had sounded so _urgent_ over the text messages.

A part of Eliza wanted to get directly to the point, but the other part didn’t want to push Maria when she was so clearly stressed. If it wasn’t so life-and-death that the two could have a leisurely conversation before talking about it, then Eliza didn’t think that she needed to force Maria to talk about the reason for their little date— _not a date._ Eliza clenched her fingers around the warm mug of cocoa in her hands.

“I’ve actually had a pretty good day,” she smiled, lifted the cup to her lips for a quick sip. “I got an A on a paper for a Sociology! Y’know, the one I spent ages working on.”

Maria’s red painted lips stretched into a giant smile that caused Eliza’s heart to burst with warmth. “That’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, grabbing Eliza’s hands excitedly.

_Kiss her,_ said that obnoxious voice in Eliza’s head. _C’mon, this is the perfect opportunity._

She ignored the voice, and instead gently let go of Maria’s hands to pick up her mug of hot chocolate, as if just by touching her Maria would be able to read Eliza’s mind and discover the lingering, less-than-platonic feelings for Maria that Eliza unwilling held close to her heart.

“Anyway, what did you get up to today?” Eliza asked, sipping from her cup.

Maria’s face fell, just slightly. “I guess that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,”

Eliza set her mug down on the table gently, before grabbing Maria’s hands again, lacing their fingers together. “Are you okay?”

Maria swallowed, glancing down at their intertwined hands, and twitching her fingers as if she wanted to be the one to pull away this time. But instead, she pursed her red lips determinedly, and tightened her fingers with Eliza’s. She took a deep breath.

“I…” Her dark eyes flitted away, almost guiltily. “I ran into James today.”

Eliza felt her breath stumble and fall in her lungs. She clenched Maria’s fingers so tightly that they were turning slightly purple.

“What did he do?” Eliza asked lowly, an uncharacteristic threat lingering on the edges of her words.

Maria’s lips sank into a downturn, deeper than the natural pout that her lips often fell into. “He still thinks that I’m just gay to get back at him,”

Eliza gnawed at her lip angrily, and for some reason Maria looked away hurriedly. “I swear to God,” she grumbled under her breath, but knew that there was nothing she could do. She was helpless in this situation.

Maria gently stroked her thumb over the back of Eliza’s hand, and that simple motion released a lot more tension from her shoulders than should have been possible. Not that she wasn’t still absolutely pissed.

“Liz, honey,” Maria placated, “You look ready to burn somebody’s house down.”

“I am,” she muttered, but glanced back up into Maria’s eyes, and relaxed her death grip on Maria’s fingers. “It’s okay to vent, y’know,” Eliza was stuck between wanting to brush a curl out of Maria’s eyes and not wanting to completely let go of her hands. “Don’t keep it all bottled up.”

Maria ducked her head slightly, in a way that reminded Eliza of a child about to confess to doing something bad. Shadows cut underneath Maria’s cheekbones and jaw, making them look even sharper than they already were.

“I got angry,” Maria said softly, still not meeting Eliza’s eyes. “And— and I messed up. A lot.” She twisted her fingers nervously. “I told a lie.”

“Oh,” Eliza said, not sure how to react. “What did you tell him?”

She watched the intricate muscles of Maria’s throat contract and expand slowly, as Maria swallowed. “I told him that I know that I’m definitely gay,” her eyes flickered up to meet Eliza’s, “because you and I are dating.”

For a split second, the world stopped spinning. The noisy chatter of the other students went dead silent, the birds outside stopped screeching obnoxiously, and the smell of coffee went stale.

In that split second of shock, Eliza let her hands go slack without her permission. Maria pulled their tangled mess of fingers apart regretfully, and Eliza almost shivered as the heat of Maria’s hands in her own was yanked away.

She curled her fingers in frustration at the lack of contact, before tucking a strand of straight, dark hair behind her ear as the drone of the conversations of the people around them slowly faded back into her ears.

Eliza glanced up to see Maria scratching agitatedly at the skin of her hand. “I’m so sorry,” Maria croaked breathlessly, the white reflections of the snow outside the window making it almost seem like there were tears in her eyes. “I can— I can find James r-right now, tell him it was a lie—”

“No!” Eliza exclaimed, louder than she intended. “No, no, no, no, we can— I can pretend to be your girlfriend, if you want me to.”

Maria was still pinching at the skin of her hand, so Eliza reached over and gently cupped both of Maria’s hands with her own. “Are you sure?” Maria asked quietly, “I don’t know what the whole ‘pretending-to-be-dating’ thing might entail.”

But Eliza just gave her a small smile, held her hands a little tighter, and said, “If it’s to keep James away from you, I’d do anything,”

* * *

 

They agreed to meet in the same booth, their booth, around the same time the next day to plan out how they were going to go about this. Maria was far too exhausted to discuss anything that complicated at the time, and Eliza really, really, needed to talk to someone, who already knew her feelings for Maria, about this.

Angelica was on a trip to London and wasn’t going to be back for another two weeks. Skype was always an option, but they were in different timezones, and venting just wasn’t the same when it was to a pixelated screen. Peggy couldn’t keep a secret to save her life.

So Eliza called her next best friend.

“Oh man,” John Laurens said, his fingers knotted around a flask of coffee, as he and Eliza sat in a different booth in the same coffee shop. “You are in such _deep shit.”_

Now, Eliza loved John. They had inevitably met back when Eliza was dating Alexander, due to John being Alex’s best friend. The two had bonded over a lot of topics, from activism to their forever fruitless attempts to get Alexander to stop writing and go to sleep for once.

Eliza was the first and only person John had told about the very much non-platonic feelings he held for Alex, although it was more of a “is it okay if I’m in love with your ex-boyfriend” kind of confession. John was the third and last person Eliza had admitted her feelings for Maria to, after her sisters of course.

So Eliza held a deep fondness for her friend. He was loud and impulsive, sure, but funny and pretty sweet at heart. However, he wasn’t the most delicate when it came to words and feelings.

“I _know,”_ Eliza groaned, pulling a hand through her hair. “But… I couldn’t just say no, y’know?”

“Oh, definitely,” John assured her. “You did the right thing by helping her out with her asshat ex-boyfriend and all, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t absolutely fucked.”

Eliza sighed, staring into the cold dregs of her coffee. “She looked like a puppy who just got yelled at,” she said somberly.

She felt a warm, comforting hand on her back, and looked up to see John staring at her seriously. “In my opinion, either way this ends, you’re fucked,”

She cocked her head to the side curiously at John’s words. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Well, worst-case scenario, things end up getting awkward between you and Maria, thanks to this whole fake dating thing, and it takes a little while for you two to sort yourselves out, and get back to your usual friendship dynamic.”

Eliza shuddered. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been rolling that option around in her mind ever since the pretend-dating option was even considered.

“But,” John continued, slinging an arm around her shoulders and giving a friendly squeeze, like he could sense her dread, “I think the far more likely option is that she ends up telling you about how head over heels she is for you, the two of you talk it out, and do a little,” he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, “in which case, you are also, fucked.”

Eliza rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the unexpected laugh that had burst out of her, shoving John’s arm away with a playful lightness that she hadn’t experienced for what felt like days.

John sometimes breached the subject of Eliza’s feelings for Maria being reciprocated. He told her about the apparent affectionate and “longing” way Maria stared at Eliza while she wasn’t looking. But Eliza would refute it with the story of the time, while looking for the textbook that she had left at Alexander’s dorm, she had found a scribbled page of Alex’s writing, literally just gushing about John’s freckles. But she wasn’t about to just steal a page of Alex’s writing from him, and so John didn’t, or maybe just wouldn’t, believe her.

It wasn’t just that the two couldn’t be certain that their love was requited. It was also that it was rather terrifying to be in love with your best friend. Because, if your feelings are mutual, then what? Do you get together? Will your friendship dynamic be skewed? There was, after all, only two ways for the situation to end up; termination of the relationship, or marriage. Eliza didn’t want to risk losing her best friend, and she could tell that John felt the same way.

It was just a whole lot easier to pine from a distance, and push away those feelings when you’re up close to the object of your affections. Maybe it’s painful, in the long run. Maybe one day you’ll be asked to stand next to them as they get married to the love of their life, and maybe you’ll have to regret just pining from the sidelines. But for now, it’s just simpler to keep your mouth shut and endure every twist of your chest.

Eliza pushed those thoughts to the back of her head, and stole a gulp of John’s coffee, ignoring his loud protests of “Ellie! I need that shit!”

* * *

 

This time, Maria was the one waiting for her in the coffee shop. In _their_ booth.

Maria offered her a cup of tea as she slid into the booth, a small and uncharacteristically nervous “Hey,” escaping from Maria’s lipsticked lips. Maria was usually one to force confidence whenever she was uncertain, so it was deeply unsettling to hear her so meek.

But she remembered how Eliza liked her tea. Two sugars, with just a touch of milk. For some reason, that caused warmth to spread out from the bottom of her heart, filling her entire chest with a kind of simple joy. _Jesus, Eliza, get a grip. You’re acting like she just proposed, all she did was buy you some tea._

“Hi,” Eliza said, quietly and carefully. She didn’t have the skills with a pen that Alexander had, but if she did, she wanted to write paragraphs, pages, books, about how Maria made her feel. She wanted to write dozens of pages about how the simple act of remembering how she took her tea caused Eliza to feel an immeasurable amount of love for Maria. She needed Maria to understand, she needed Maria to _know,_ that the girl sitting next to her would do absolutely anything for her. She needed Maria to realize just how much she was loved.

But she didn’t have words bursting out of her like Alex did. Eliza couldn’t build Maria the palaces of paragraphs that she deserved. So she just wished that she could convey everything she felt in one small, quiet word.

“Thanks.”

Maria just shrugged, “No problem,” and Eliza didn’t let her heart sink. It wasn’t like Maria could read minds.

“So how are we going to do this?” Eliza asked, eyeing Maria’s hands from across the table. Her fingers were long and slender and fit oh so perfectly between Eliza’s own. She didn’t take Maria’s hands, but couldn’t ignore the way that her fingers twitched with temptation.

“I honestly don’t know,” Maria said, cupping her own drink and staring down into it apprehensively. “I think… we should start figuring out how we ‘got together’.”

“Oh, yeah. Good idea.” Eliza wondered if Maria could also feel the molasses-thick tension between them.

It was silent between the two for a moment. Eliza wondered if she should suggest an idea. Then Maria started talking. “I’ll— I’ll tell people that I had a crush on you from the moment I met you. I’ll tell them that I slowly fell in love with your smile, subtle a lot of the time, but absolutely perfect all of the time and genuine, so genuine that sometimes I felt like it was the only real thing in the world.”

Eliza was quiet. Her stomach swirled happily at the compliments, even as she reminded herself that Maria was only tossing ideas around.

But Maria was far from done. “And I could tell that you never really understood just how— just how— just how _wonderful_ that smile could make someone feel.” She let go of her drink and tapped her red-painted nails on the table. “I’ll tell them that sometimes I would see you drawing little doodles on the cuffs of your jeans, during particularly boring lectures.”

Eliza glanced down and, sure enough, there was little scribbled stars, dotting their way cheerfully across the rolled-up cuffs of the jeans she had borrowed from Angelica. She had a dim, half-formed memory of drawing them in blue ballpoint, without even realizing it for a while, during a lecture from Lee.

“But I’ll say, I’ll tell them about how I just kept all of this inside my head. I wanted so badly to tell you all this, but I just— I didn’t know _how,”_ Maria made a slightly choked noise that made Eliza’s heart want to rip itself in two. “And I’d always say to myself, ‘If only I could _tell_ her all this. If only I could _tell_ her about all these gorgeous little details.’”

For a second, all Eliza could manage was a tiny _oh._ There was a tense silence for a couple of seconds, as Maria stared pensively, regretfully?, into her drink. Eliza’s mouth started speaking before she gave it permission to. “What— what else will you tell them?” Maria hesitated for a moment, and Eliza realized her mistake. “Wait! It’s fine, I’m fine, we probably have en—”

But Maria was speaking again, and Eliza tried not to let her heart leap with joy at that. “And I’ll tell them that I thought you looked like the prettiest girl alive when you put those blue streaks in your hair,” Eliza remembered that. The three Schuyler sisters had gone to a hairdresser’s to get their hair dyed, together, each in their own favourite colour. Angelica had gotten subtle pink highlights, Peggy had the ends of her hair dip-dyed gold, and Eliza had gotten blue streaks, which was no easy feat, considering how dark her hair was.

Eliza smiled slightly at the memory, and Maria seemed to take this as encouragement. She had begun fiddling with the curly ends of her hair, agitatedly or excitedly, Eliza couldn’t tell.

“And I’ll say that, whenever I was with you at a bar or a club, I would see you dancing. And I’d always ask myself how you learned to dance like the rest of the world isn’t watching,” Maria glanced up to meet her eyes, before staring back down into her cup.

“But you’d never tell me this.” Eliza said softly.

“No. Because, y’know, I’ll tell them how I connected with you on so many levels, and most of the time it felt like we were closer than anything, but when it came to telling you how I felt, I felt like I was looking at you from the other side of the galaxy.”

“And we just didn’t know how to put how we felt into words.” Eliza added, and saw Maria nod vigorously from the corner of her eye.

“I always wanted to tell you, but it felt like there was so much distance, like I was standing on one side of the Grand Canyon and you were on the other, and I didn’t know how to say those damn words.”

Eliza’s breath stilled in her throat. _What words? What fucking—?_

“That’s how I’ll say that our relationship started,”

Now, Eliza wasn’t stupid or oblivious. If she was reading this right…

It felt like she was arguing against herself in her head. Her voice of self-doubt fretted that Maria could just be a really good storyteller and actress. But the other, a voice that sounded suspiciously like John’s, was far louder and more confident-sounding. _She practically just gushed poetry about how much she loves you. Did you hear what she said about your smile, your hair, your dancing, your—_

So Eliza made a decision. This was either going to end up amazing, or the worst decision she’d ever made. “You didn’t say how we got together,”

Maria, who had looked a little lost in her own world for a little bit, snapped her head up, looking embarrassed. She opened her mouth, probably to suggest ideas as to how they had gotten together, but Eliza beat her to it.

“I was thinking that we could say that we got together right here. In _our_ booth.” She enjoyed the blush that spread across Maria’s cheekbones at the emphasized “our” a little too much. “So we’re sitting here, and, and you decided to just tell me all of that. All at once.” Eliza took a deep breath, stretching her lungs to their full capacity. “And I told you that I love you as well. That I love the way your hair curls just that little bit more when it rains, and that your smile could outshine the sunrise, and how your favourite shade of red always makes me think of picking apples in the orchard with my sisters, when I was a little girl.”

Maria stares at her intensely, blinking slowly, pupils wide.

“And then we kissed.”

Looking back on it, neither of them could remember who made the first move. But suddenly they were kissing like tomorrow wouldn’t arrive, like any second they were going to be ripped away from each other. They kissed with the kind of desperation that you could only find in people who had been waiting for this for _so long._ Maria’s fingers combed nimbly through Eliza’s hair, and Eliza threw her arms around Maria’s neck.  
  
Maria’s lips tasted like coffee and lipstick, a combination that Eliza really shouldn’t have enjoyed as much as she did. But Eliza was pretty sure that if she kissed anyone else who tasted the exact same way that Maria did, it wouldn’t be the same. Because it wasn’t the comforting taste of coffee or the smearing of lipstick that Eliza enjoyed, but the fact that she was kissing _Maria Lewis._ Maria could taste like anything, and Eliza would still savour every touch of their lips.

After what simultaneously felt like hours but also only a few seconds, the two broke away from each other slowly, reluctantly.

“So,” Eliza broke the comfortable silence of a few seconds, “Was all of that…”

Maria nodded so hard that she almost accidentally shrugged Eliza’s hands off her shoulders. “I meant every word of it,”

Eliza felt a giddy smile creep across her face. “Good,” she whispered, because these words weren’t for anyone but Maria. “I do love you, for real.”

Maria grinned at her, eyes sparkling, before breaking out into a fit of giggles. She buried her head into Eliza’s neck, still letting out breathy laughs.

“What?” Eliza asked, a little nervously, tangling her fingers in Maria’s hair and stroking it, just because she _could._ “What is it?”

Maria lifted her head and smiled at her properly. “I guess we don’t have to do the whole awkward fake-dating thing after all,” she sing-song-ed, “Because I love you too.”

She pulled Eliza into a sudden, tight, and indescribably warm embrace. Eliza felt Maria’s lips tickle her ear as she whispered _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ over and over again.

“But,” Eliza pulled back, just slightly. “I don’t— I don’t know how to do this. If we’re going to do the whole relationship thing. I don’t really know who to do that without messing it up. You saw how messily I ended my last one. And,” She looked away from Maria’s concern-laced face. “I’m a little scared.”

“Oh, Liz,” Maria wrapped her arms around Eliza’s waist and pulled her close. “You and I both know that I have even less of a clue than you do. I think, I think we’re supposed to be a little uncertain when it comes to things like this. But,” she cupped Eliza’s pale face, who leaned gladly into her touch. “I think we can start with me calling you my girlfriend. For real.”

Eliza grabbed her hands and laced their fingers snugly together, their hands slotting together like they were supposed to be one. “I think so too.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote like 700 words of this last week, and the rest of it last night. sorry if it's incoherent, i just proof-read it and i'm exhausted.
> 
> Marliza is a ship that I wasn't expecting... but damn, if i don't love it. Also, i have some VERY strong opinions on John Laurens and Eliza being friends, and those opinions are that they would DEFINITELY be friends. i don't think that they ever met irl, though?
> 
> god, i should be working on my multichap for a different fandom, but i couldn't stop thinking about this.
> 
> i really, really want to expand on this universe. if Alex and John get together, how Eliza and Maria met, and a marliza established relationship sequel based on the deh song "only us"?? yes please. but no promises, i'm an unreliable-ass bitch, i literally only write when i feel like it, and school is a bitch. then again, the easter holidays are coming, i should find the time to write then.
> 
> "If I Could Tell Her" is one of the absolute best pining songs out there, so you should go listen to it no matter what you ship.iIt was literally the song that got me into dear evan hansen.
> 
> feel free to punch me in the face on my tumblr, @brightwritesstuff, i'm pretty much always open to either a) asks about literally anything at all, or b) taking a fist to the face.


End file.
